Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE HOBO. or of his life to Edna and she liked him the better for it, for what was there roman- tic about him or his drab past of casual drudge in comparison with her picturesque hero and his adventurous youth? How different, indeed, from Walter, was the dull though pleasant wooer in his washed-out blue overalls and shirt and his face that looked little smoother after a Sunday shav- ing than it did before! She saw him plodding along the way that in time would make him as commonplace as old Uncle Frank himself. And then would rise before her the buoyant Walter striding over the tops of the cars, or stand- ing debonair and smiling across the fence from her that first time in the sun and dew of morning amid the hum of mating birds. Always she thought of her brakeman, always she grieved because of him and his going away without word or heed for her. Though she inclined more and more to the hired man’s prosaic love making her mind was subconsciously full of her sweetheart of the past. And when the diffident Harry, driving her home from a picnic one evening, grew bold enough to press her hand and lightly squeeze her waist she fancied it was the hand and arm of Walter. She was thinking so tensely of him that she did not lose the illusion when the man at her side took her awkwardly in his arms and nervously kissed her. The night was moonless, starry. The horses, tired from a week of hard work, had stopped at the side of the road a few rods from the railroad crossing. The girl smiled and trembled in the em- brace as the two sat in the buggy with the top pushed back behind them, smiled and trembled in the fantasy of her absent lover’s presence and caresses. “Your mother said she would like to have me stay here always and be one of the family,” stammered Harry. ‘ Would you like to have me stay that way?” ‘“ Uh—huh!” Edna murmured, feeling those vicarious kisses on her lips. He put her arms about his neck and she left them there. A vague scream sounded across the night, 951 grew louder, swelling into a mighty shout. A huge eye of flame gleamed out of the darkness and then rose a din and roar. was the passenger train warning of its com- ing to the crossing. It thundered past, in an earth-trembling moment, the green illumined windows flit- ting by, and it was gone, leaving but a flare of light and a rumbling groan in the blackness. Edna followed the train with her eyes and ears and soul. In the moment of its passing she had thought of nothing but of Walter. She did not expect to see or hear him as she used to do when the freight puffed by the pasture wall. Only this train was a symbol of him and his life, his love and his going, his going away from her for- ever. She stared with a bitter and measure- less yearning into the void which had swal- lowed up the train. She turned to the man beside her to see him looking into that gloom. His arms were no longer about her, his lips not pressed to hers. His gaze was charged with a yearn- ing such as had filled her own, such as more than once she had seen in his eyes as the freight steamed past them when they walked behind the cows at milking time. IV. Mrs. GILPIN greeted her daughter next morning with such a happy smile that the latter was sure Harry had made known their troth. The girl smiled back and went out with her milk pail. She was not sorry for her decision as she listened to her mother humming snatches of an old love song and heard the hired man swearing in joyous good humor at the horses. It was not last night’s decision, not her decision. Her mind had been made up long before by forces outside herself. Harry’s unobtrusive courting, her moth- er’s determination to mate her to him, Wal- ter’s desertion, all had combined to deliver her up to this marriage. She might as well mate with Harry, who would be a fine hus- band, as live an old maid with her mother making existence wretched for her because she had neglected this matrimonial oppor- CoOMmiclbookSsS.se© <a nn